Searching for Sunday: motherhood, guilt and disillusionment

via Wikimedia Commons

I spent my teenage years dedicated to the music department at my Fenland comprehensive school. Choir, orchestra, string quartet, vocal ensemble, recorder group. Local music festivals, county-wide choir days, youth orchestra every Saturday and umpteen church fêtes. We were a partner school of Cambridge University, and so it happened that every December, we'd pile into a minibus and he'd drive us to Cambridge, the Head of Music leading a gaggle of girls over the Backs and to King's College chapel, where we'd sit, awestruck, alongside fellow music geeks of Cambridgeshire, and listen to a special performance of Carols from King's; without the TV cameras, without the crowds of people queuing from breakfast time to try to get a seat. Just 20 or so teenage girls high on sugar from vending machine sweets, on the lookout for nice male undergraduates in the choir, with a slightly harassed middle-aged man known as 'Mr C'.

I'd sit and listen to those performances absolutely rapt. The hush, the stillness and sense of anticipation in the chapel always contrasting with the grey murkiness of the December day as we stepped back outside shrieking once more and looking about, furtively, for attractive men (think of my choir, circa 1999, a bit like Alan Warner's Sopranos - minus the nuns and delinquency, instead intensely bothered about their GCSE results). Something got to me every time and it's something that's always happened with old churches and chapels, something I ceased to think about very much as I moved into adulthood, attending church in a school hall, a football stadium, a tent, a conference centre and finding that God could show up in any of them, as well as in seminars on Celtic mysticism, in halls of residence at one in the morning, in fields at dusk and on a mountain in a hailstorm.

I recently finished reading Searching for Sunday, Rachel Held Evans' new book about 'loving, leaving and finding the church'. As I read the final chapters, highlighting paragraphs and having laughed, cried and nodded along with Evans' experiences as a member of a most difficult generation, - a generation that's the subject of research and anguish and umpteen thinkpieces - I felt as if I'd reached a turning point and was ready to do something I haven't been able to do for three years. I say I haven't been able to do it - I've alluded to it and vaguely explored it - but have intentionally refrained from writing because the reality has been something I've been wrestling with, and all along I've felt as if this isn't something I could write about in the midst of so much turmoil.
And so instead, I've emailed people. I've engaged in lengthy Twitter conversations and poured my heart out to friends. I've been angry and I've felt full of shame and I've felt relief and happiness when people have said 'Me too'. Because for three years I've been searching for Sunday, and I've come to the conclusion that right now it's probably not what I should be doing, nor is it what's most helpful.
In 2012 I became a mother. It hardly seems possible that Sebastian is three this week, a hilarious, much-loved little ball of energy. Motherhood hit me like it hits most other women; I mulled over the shift in my identity incessantly, felt incredibly lonely, struggled with anxiety and felt as if I'd left my brain somewhere else for months on end as I cared for a child that Did Not Sleep. Unsurprisingly, I totally disengaged from church. With one eye on the baby and my weary mind struggling to cope with the noise and the crowds and the intrusion, I zoned out. When I wasn't zoned out, all I could feel was guilt.
The modern church can be incredibly effective at making you feel guilty because you're insufficiently involved, insufficiently on board, insufficiently motivated to do more, give more, be more. There are always more programmes, more opportunities to serve, another reminder to get better at quiet time or outreach or prayer. When you have a baby your priorities change. This doesn't mean that you have no desire to give more, to learn more; in my case, motherhood coincided with the beginning of a deep desire to know more about theology, to delve deeply into scripture, and a growing sense of revelation in the everyday, in conversations with friends and rigorous self-analysis. But what it does mean is that you almost certainly have no time to actually do it. 
In 2012 I became a mother. My mental health has had its ups and downs. I returned to work full time when my son was nine months old and I love my job. I've had a thirst for deep friendships, but my introvert's brain doesn't do well with small talk and crowds and distractions. I've longed for peace and quiet and a sense of the sacred and to simply be left alone. And for a good few years, I've been sold the idea that showing up on a Sunday, getting enthusiastic about joining in and getting something out of it is paramount. But by and large I've felt nothing, learnt nothing, wished for more free time and more focus, wished I'd stayed at home or gone for a walk or read a book instead.
Deep down I know that looking to find everything in 90 minutes on a Sunday isn't the right thing to do. But I've still expected something - and when I've failed to gain anything from those 90 minutes on a Sunday, I've felt disillusioned and angry. Excluded because I'm not 'on board' and don't even want to be, apprehensive because I've been desperate to talk to someone about it but worried that doing so would make me a troublemaker, get me labelled as bitter, problematic, a contentious woman. The fear of raising issues with church is real. The fear of raising issues with church as a woman takes things up a level because you know that somewhere, someone will listen to you pour your heart out and then put you in a box marked 'women's issues', 'over-emotional', 'Jezebel spirit'.

via cassidy @ Flickr

On Christmas Eve last year the three of us went to the afternoon service of lessons and carols at the cathedral. Arriving with half an hour to spare, the building was already packed and we ended up sitting off to one side, behind a pillar. A hush fell over the congregation as the lone voice began to sing, the long wait of Advent reaching its end. After the first carol, the choir sang This Is The Truth Sent From Above, something I hadn't heard for years. For a moment I remembered a bleak day and King's College Chapel, and as I sat and watched I felt, for the first time in a long time, what it is like to worship. At the close of the service, as we sang Hark the Herald Angels Sing, I wanted to raise my hands rather than sit down and sigh, disengaged again.
Traditional forms of church aren't new to me; I grew up in the Church of England. Rachel Held Evans and others have written of a 'trend' that's being observed, of millennials rejecting new churches and falling in love with liturgy. Some people are regarding this with a bit of cynicism: is it truly a trend, or the confirmation bias of a few bloggers with book deals in their sights? Maybe, and yet when Evans writes "All I wanted from church when I was ready to give it up was a quiet sanctuary and some candles. All I wanted was a safe place to be," I get it. Last summer, I felt as if I was about to become a 'done', but I wasn't sure. My faith hasn't gone anywhere, and deep down, I knew that become a 'done' wasn't the answer.
  A couple of weeks ago when I was discussing all this with friends on Twitter, I said I was finally ready to write about it - this internal battle that's hindered my writing about faith for at least two years now. I wanted to write about it because I know that at the start of all this, I felt so alone. I felt as if I knew what would happen if I ever broached the subject. In early 2014 I wrote an impassioned response to a pastor who had blogged about what he thought were 'five really bad reasons to leave a church'. "Put away the shopping cart and pick up a shovel," he admonished Christians, accusing those who have struggles with the church of being lazy consumerists. That post came out of my fear of raising those same issues and getting those same, dismissive answers - or as Rachel Held Evans described in Searching for Sunday, a desire to find a quick fix and restore everything to the joyful, smiling norm:
"...what they find is when they bring their pain or their doubt or their uncomfortable truth to church, someone immediately grabs it out of their hands to try to fix it, to try and make it go away. Bible verses are quoted. Assurances are given. Plans with ten steps and measurable results are made. With good intentions tinged with fear, Christians scour their inventory for a cure.
But there is a difference between curing and healing, and I believe the church is called to the slow and difficult work of healing. We are called to enter into one another's pain, anoint it as holy, and stick around no matter the outcome."
And so, over the past couple of years, I've been thankful for those who have come not with an answer but who have said "I know" or "My wife felt exactly the same" or "Me too" and made me realise I wasn't alone. I don't think we talk about it enough; we keep quiet because it rocks the boat and upsets people and makes us seem selfish and complaining.
What do I think churches can do? You can support mothers of young children but not just mothers of young children, really - the disillusioned and the anxious and the people who have big plans that don't fit with your vision. Look out for the people who are just standing there on a Sunday, zoned out, looking uncomfortable, not looking joyful like I know you want them to. You can remember that we don't have the time and the headspace to give you more and more and buy into your latest strategy, but also that we still exist and that we want opportunities and role models - and that we are still striving to grow in our faith. You can provide pastoral support that makes people feel they can be open, not apprehensive about speaking up. You can refrain from publishing blog posts that call people who have issues with the church selfish consumer Christians.
And what if you're reading this and thinking "This is me"? Bring it all back to God and your place in the Kingdom and where you're at, right now. Not what you feel you should be involved in and saying yes to and not how you think you should be continually striving to do better and give more of yourself. Invest time in your family and your friends. Listen to God when you feel prompted to explore ways of worship or study or churches you might feel at home in. Remember the fact that Christianity doesn't mean being assimilated and being just like everyone else at church, or all your Christian friends on Facebook, or having to like everything you hear on a Sunday. When that headspace starts to come back, use it wisely. And know that you are not alone.
Click here for my Storify of a conversation on Twitter mentioned in this post

The nagging wife: symptom or cause?

The 'nagging wife' is a centuries-old stereotype that refuses to die. She's the subject of eye-rolling banter between men, the warning from the pulpit and the marriage guidance book, the defence of countless men who have committed murder. In recent weeks, she has resurfaced as a truly 21st century reminder to women that there's something else they're probably not doing well enough at - in the form of a piece entitled 'I wasn't treating my husband fairly, and it wasn't fair'.

The post, which appears to have gone viral in the grand tradition of 'pseudo-meaningful revelations about my relationship that easily translate into clickbait' (247,000 shares on Facebook), details a wife's realisation that her controlling and obsessive attitude to household matters was belittling her husband and buying into another hard-to-stamp-out stereotype - that of the 'useless' husband who can't be trusted to do a thing around the house.

Thousands upon thousands of women have apparently recognised themselves in this tale and I don't think she's entirely wrong. I've heard her tale in conversations in the office or on nights out with friends. 'Wife always knows best' - 'happy wife, happy life' - I've heard people say it and I've most definitely seen them post it on Facebook (there is a theme here. Facebook has a lot to answer for). And I don't buy into it because, really, what does it say when the only words that come out of your mouth regarding your partner, your husband, the father of your children - are about how 'useless' he is and how you won't 'let' him do things?

This works both ways. It's clear that men and women are called to respect and honour each other and sickly relationship-themed clickbait is, for all its faults, reasonably good at pointing this out. However what's often noticeable is the way this point is made differently, depending on whether the post in question is primarily about, or written by, a man or a woman. A key theme in relationship-focused clickbait from men (particularly of the loosely Christian variety): 'You'll be bawling your eyes out when you read about the amazing thing this guy did for his wife'. Conversely, a key theme in relationship-focused clickbait from women: 'The one thing I realised I needed to do more of/less of as a wife and mother'. As ever, identifying our inadequacies and how we must 'do better' defines us as women.

In writing about her tendency to take control and insist that things are done 'her way' - the purchasing of meat, the sorting of laundry - one woman has identified a key way that power struggles between couples often play out. She mentions that she doesn't believe men act in the same way towards women, referencing the fact her husband is 'just not as concerned with some of the minutiae as I am'. But what she doesn't identify is what is so often the reason for this, and the reason for the way women frequently feel compelled to assert power.

I don't know many women who are comfortable with simply doing nothing. Relaxing, chilling out, whatever you prefer to call it. I'm one of them. I've had countless conversations with friends where we've discussed our discomfort with sitting still. There are, quite simply, always things that must be done, whether that means housework or running errands or getting through our 'to read' list or writing another blog post. Not for nothing do we talk about the 'second shift' or the 'double burden' - the fact that women's increased entry into the workplace has not resulted, in the majority of cases, in an egalitarian set-up when it comes to housework, childcare, and the general organisation of family life. 

Even women who do enjoy a more equal partnership struggle to allow themselves downtime, knowing at the same time that their partners have no such qualms about relaxing - and for many it's learned from childhood in the way they've seen the household roles their parents have played.

The curse of modern womanhood, as we all know too well, is that whatever you do and however you do it, feelings of guilt and inadequacy will snap at your heels like an angry terrier. The majority of society, from politicians to journalists, to people on parenting forums and your own relatives have a wealth of opinions on what constitutes acceptable womanhood and unfortunately, most of us socialised to care a whole lot about what others think about us and out lifestyle choices.

This, of course, happens in different ways. I enjoy a pretty egalitarian marriage and couldn't care less if I haven't dusted my mantelpieces in living memory, but I've certainly considered myself a bit of a let-down for sitting on the sofa watching television when emails have languished in my inbox and projects haven't moved forward as quickly as I would have liked (and those are personal emails and personal projects, not even work-related ones).

Even today, especially today, the running of the home and of family life inevitably falls on the shoulders of women. Even if it doesn't, in theory - for those in equal partnerships for example - we still consider it our responsibility, berating ourselves internally when they let something slip. The minutiae of daily life all too easily becomes a source of anxiety - I know I've had to remind myself that I am, in fact, allowed to relax and that this is not the same thing as laziness. And for many women, the efficiency and performance of the minutiae of daily life is one of the few areas in which they can exert power and control.

Guarding against a hunger for power and control is something all humans must do. A toxic force within relationships and families, it often manifests in differing ways because of the ways men and women are brought up to behave and to gain power, and the ways society considers it acceptable for them to do so. Discouraged from speaking our minds and pursuing confrontation or appearing to 'dominate' a relationship, women are encouraged instead to resort to manipulation and only ever to demonstrate indirectly that they might 'know best', or indeed have feelings about anything at all. It's even a tactic that's encouraged by numerous Christian books on marriage: upholding traditional gender roles means subtly manipulating and influencing your husband rather than asking him or telling him. That would, of course, be 'nagging', or assuming a dominant role.

'Nagging', and the range of emotions and issues it encompasses - the wrong meat purchased, the blue sock accidentally included in the white wash, the fact that somehow, people do things differently to you and that's just not right - must therefore be looked at as part of the wider picture of how women are permitted to exercise control over their own lives and the lives of others. 

The key sphere in which women are permitted by society to exercise authority is the home. In a world of judgement, anxiety and the feeling that whatever you do will somehow be not good enough and that there are countless factors in your life that you can't control, household tasks are one of things that you can. Whereas men are allowed to assert authority in the public sphere and as the 'head of the household', women remain largely responsible for all that lies beneath, and even today, they know that their worth as women is often judged by it.

Men have - usually - not been brought up to notice the minutiae of the home and family life. They haven't had to, because, historically, it's always been women's work. It's something that's been done for them and they've often never really had to think about it - yet many (not all) expect it to somehow get done anyway. Even in relationships where both partners truly don't care about crumbs on the floor and the correct brand of mayonnaise being purchased, women feel compelled to set standards lest they be judged by society, their friends, their mother-in-law - and found wanting in a way that men never will. 

In a world where this burden still inevitably falls to women, in a world where humans want control and power, the woman whose anxiety and anger over things not being done 'her way' can be seen as a symptom, not just a cause, of gender relations that need restoration. Perhaps a more balanced and egalitarian approach to home life - where tasks and responsibilities are not gendered - might alleviate the need to control and 'take charge' over simple household tasks.

#FaithFeminisms - Where we've come from vs where we must go

Reading so many stories of women coming to find their feminism alongside, or as part of, their faith this week made me realise the details of how it happened for me had become slightly hazy. I've told people the tale so often now: I went to university as a lifelong Anglican who'd never been taught a single thing about gender and religion, but also as one who had also started identifying as evangelical. In the following years, I slowly began to learn that some people didn't believe women could be church leaders, and that they also believed in rigid gender roles. I struggled to feel as if I fit in at church, feeling as if people wanted to cram my personality into a box marked 'Biblical femininity' and do away with all the bits that made me who I was. I'd started to pick up the messages from leafing through books and from coming across blogs aimed at Christian women. Even though I'd grown up far removed from the US evangelical culture of the time, it was starting to affect my life. When I got engaged, more than one person told my husband-to-be that they didn't think I was right for him and advised him to reconsider. I was the young woman who was Too Much, with the wrong sort of upbringing and the wrong sort of ambitions.

What I'd forgotten over the years is how much this hurt. These days I tend to consider myself quite privileged to have come to faith and grown up outside the sort of Christian culture that has caused so much pain to so many. Looking back at my Livejournal (yes, my Livejournal) from the time it's filled with accounts of news stories I found that worried me intensely: The Silver Ring Thing trying to raise its profile in the UK; people I knew starting to talk approvingly about Mark Driscoll; conservative blogs on 'Biblical womanhood' that named as 'selfish', among other things, working outside the home, eating disorders, and 'giving in to PMT'. I worried about what would be expected of me as a married woman, and I didn't know what to do. I knew something wasn't right, but I worried that the problem was me. In 2007 I was writing about asking God to show me where the problem lay. Was I displeasing Him? Was I, as ever, Not Good Enough?

Enter my discovery of egalitarianism, and I know many of you know where that led me. Reading back into my story today has reminded me not to forget the place I came from. Yesterday, I told someone how strongly I feel that as a community of women, as Christians and feminists we must tell our stories, but also move past the incessant going over of those 'moment of realisation' posts, the posts about how yes, indeed, faith and feminism are compatible. They give us warm fuzzy feelings but do they move us forwards? I remember today the women who will be reading through the #FaithFeminisms posts this week with a growing sense of excitement and a sense of sisterhood, the feeling that they're not alone and the problem isn't theirs to 'get over'. I was there once, and then everything changed.

For the rest of us though, when we've been here a while we can be tempted to get tired of it all. At a time when discussions about the feminist movement often seem to be centred on its 'toxic nature', an incessant cycle of call-outs, fall-outs, and the drawing of lines in the sand, it's easy to hold up our hands and step back. Are these our people after all? Aren't they, well, a bit angry? But if we disengage and seek solace in the safety of our own privileges, of evangelical subculture and its respectability, I don't believe we'll be the women we're called to be. It's easy to take the 'I'm all right' route, stay content in our progressive crowd and forget about all those for whom things are very much not all right. Even as more progressive voices make themselves heard, there's still an emphasis on watching our tone, being careful not to be 'divisive' and being careful not to upset conservatives or men. Often, it seems as if the message is: you'll never win them over unless you play it safe and play nice and make sure that men get to take centre stage too. 

I believe what we're called to do instead is bring the very best aspects of our faith to the feminist table. Foster understanding, demonstrate love, and stand against injustice. Demonstrate true sisterhood. Don't be tempted by performative social justice activism that prioritises call-outs, ideological purity, and ejecting people from the fold over recognising people's humanity and discussing problematic behaviour in a productive way. We feel saddened by the performative gatekeeping of Christianity, with its 'farewells' and smackdowns. Let our feminism not fall prey to the same problems. This week I've seen people better known by the mainstream movement and from outside the movement altogether exclaim how open and welcoming they've found #FaithFeminisms. I've always found this to be the case and I hope they're values we hold on to.

I've met some of the very best people I know thanks to being a young woman with an internet connection and a lot of thoughts and feelings about faith and feminism. At the beginning, it seemed that patriarchal Christianity had the monopoly on the popular books and the websites I was seeing and the messages I was getting. Today, women I am proud to call my friends have published books on egalitarianism and feminism. I've been involved in networks of women working together and supporting each other as we navigate what it means to practice faith and feminism. I'm a founder member of one of them. I'm involved in a group that's trying to get another one off the ground. Once we felt silenced, now there is a definite voice that has the power to speak to the church and to the secular feminist movement. And we can build on this by coming alongside each other and doing what, as Christians, we're supposed to work at doing best: creating real and productive community - those that support, those that organise, those that lead - no longer voices in the wilderness but a movement for change.

This post is part of #FaithFeminisms week. Do read the amazing posts that have been written by other women.

Kirstie Allsopp, classism, and a distinct lack of choice

It was obvious what was going to happen yesterday when the media started putting its own spin on Kirstie Allsopp's comments made in an interview with Bryony Gordon for the Telegraph, coming up with headlines such as "Kirstie Allsopp tells young women: ditch university and have a baby at 27". As everyone who bothered to read the original article knows, that's not the extent of what she said - but why let that get in the way of calling her stupid, accusing her of wanting to take women back to the 1950s, and telling her where to stick her overprivileged expectations about home ownership and marriage?

According to the law of how women talk about lifestyle choices and how it's played out in the media, Allsopp has, of course, been positioned as some sort of spokesperson for womankind, judging everyone who doesn't want to live their life the way she thinks they should. And in their reactions to her comments, many of those who don't agree with her have fallen into the trap that's so obviously laid for us all, every single time some vaguely high-profile woman has something to say about women's lives. Yesterday's 'debate' became a defence of education and careers (and why not? No-one's going to deny that they're important things to defend), against the spectre of smug, twee, wealthy motherhood and financial dependency on men.

No-one likes to feel patronised, especially by someone they perceive to be out of touch with what most women think and want. I don't think it's correct to say that women are unaware of fertility issues, or that they are never talked about. There's enough discussion of it about for us to know roughly at what point conceiving a child does begin to become much more of a struggle - if, indeed, we were all that fertile to begin with. But the fact is, even as most women know what they'd do about becoming a mother, in an ideal world, and even as they laugh at scaremongering headlines about 'career women leaving it too late', the years pass by quickly - years of trying to find a suitable partner, trying to save money, trying to get a job, or a better job, or a job you actually like.

What Allsopp did touch on - which I believe is important here - is the pressure on middle-class women to have the various aspects of their lives sorted out and adhering to an ideal before children get factored in. The degree, the wedding, the 'life experiences', the career, the foot on the property ladder. It was noticeable yesterday just how many people I witnessed saying "But NO-ONE can afford to buy a house/have a baby in their 20s!" And it's certainly true that for many people, saving up for a house deposit is a terrifying thought. Wondering how to pay the bills while on maternity leave or afford to pay childcare is a terrifying thought. But it's also true that many, many people become parents in their 20s (and earlier). Many, many people who aren't privileged and whose parents haven't bought them a flat somehow manage to become parents and just get on with it. Yesterday's 'debate' had a particularly narrowly-focused and classist side to it - one that needs to look beyond non-debates over the 'right time' to have children or go to university or get married and question instead the way UK society places expectation on women about the 'right' way to live their lives in a country that makes it so difficult for them to do so, sneering at both those who choose not to go along with it and those who are happy about having achieved it.

Let's leave aside, for a moment, the fact that becoming a mother at a young age so often gets you labelled as a 'scrounger', a 'waste of potential', or a statistic for the right to sneer at, and the fact that being a relatively young middle-class stay at home mother gets you labelled as 'smug' and 'irritating', and being a childfree woman in your 30s gets you labelled as 'sad' or 'selfish' - because these things are important, but they're not the most difficult things.

Not when a particular 'route' of university followed by the career ladder followed by 'settling down' when you're financially secure and have 'really lived your life' is the 'desired' one. Not when the cost of attending university has skyrocketed and the housing market in London and the south-east is ridiculous and there's so much competition for jobs that people despair of ever getting the job they want or feeling financially secure at all. Not when maternity discrimination is rife, maternity leave difficult to imagine for those in difficult financial circumstances, and childcare here is the second most expensive in Europe. Not when the burden of care and everything child-related is still seen as a woman's domain. Not when the voices of women who have had children at a young age, and working class women who have never had the luxury of expecting to get all their ducks in a row before making big decisions about their lives go unheard, as feminists who are quick to sneer at the idea of having children in their 20s without thinking how that looks to their sisters who already have children and are doing just fine. For all the cries of "Shut up Kirstie, can't you see it's all about choice?!" it's evident that most of the time, it's really, emphatically, not.

Yesterday wasn't the first time in the last couple of years that I've been reminded of this piece on women in Iceland that appeared in the Guardian in 2011. I remember being struck at the time by the idea that being a young mum at university could be seen as totally normal, rather than a 'challenge' or something worthy of a newspaper feature as it might be in the UK. Writes Kira Cochrane:

"Parents here talk strongly of community support, of collective care for children, and there is no sense that motherhood precludes work or study, which effectively changes the whole structure of women's lives."

One woman, who we're told had her first child at the age of 19, is quoted saying: "You are not forced to organise your life in the 'college-work-maybe children later' way". Another woman explains how couples in Iceland don't tend to think of parenthood in 'How many children can we afford?' terms. And with full-time childcare, at the time of publication, costing single mothers £70 and couples £118 a month (as opposed to an average cost of more than £700 a month for full-time working couples in the UK - much higher in London), you can see why. Feminists do enough shouting about the perceived egalitarian joys of Scandinavia and I'm aware that no country is perfect. The fact remains that women in the UK find themselves supposedly liberated yet also restricted by what we've constructed as the 'right' way to do things, the 'right' way to live the capitalist dream and the 'right' way to experience life. For many, it's a bind and an enormous source of anxiety. For many more, it's unattainable and unrealistic, and by doing things their way they end up being derided and devalued by Kirstie Allsopp's cheerleaders and detractors alike.

We need to talk about Mumsnet feminists

Mumsnet has recently published the results of its Feminism Survey, conducted in July with over 2,000 participants. Unlike the universally-panned (but much hyped by the media) Netmums feminism survey of 2012 that reported the movement was off-putting to most women and instead championed "the rise of the feMEnist" (I blogged about this) - this survey is actually a little bit heartening. It found that members of Mumsnet felt that being a part of the site had made them more likely to identify with feminism, more aware of feminist perspectives on everyday issues, and and had changed their opinions on what constitutes domestic abuse, as well as enabling them to understand different perspectives and choices to their own.

Everyone has an opinion about Mumsnet, particularly people who have never actually explored the site before. I seem to remember becoming aware of this around the time of the last general election, long before I knew much about it, in fact. A lot of mockery was going on: politicians trying to appeal to "Mumsnet types", having livechats and acting all interested in their concerns. There was justified irritation that some politicians seemed to be making out that the only political issues women are interested in are those relating to motherhood and children, but also plenty of stereotyping of the sort of women who congregate on Mumsnet:

For certain (usually reasonably right-wing) commentators, and most people "below the line", the site is full of silly, smug, middle class women with "baby brain" talking about their overprivileged, indulgent lives. They have the ability to form a hysterical, bullying mob at any given moment and make the lives of anyone who disagrees with them hell.

For certain feminists, Mumsnet's frequented by silly, smug, middle class women talking about their overprivileged, indulgent lives and worrying themselves with "trivial" issues as they "moralise" about society, assuming they're better than everyone else because they have children and attacking those who make different parenting choices to theirs.

So as the Guardian's report on the survey began to attract attention this morning, it was great to see so many people talking positively about it and acknowledging the work that Mumsnet is doing - through successful campaigns, for example. Yet at the same time (because this is Twitter we're talking about here) "God help feminism if it's being represented by bloody Mumsnet," said others, no doubt envisaging the overprivileged and overindulged being hailed as the new leaders of the movement.

Notable this weekend has been backlash against the Guardian's inclusion, in the piece, of Ticky Hedley-Dent's comment (from "a Twitter debate earlier this year") that "I think Mumsnet is key to understanding feminism. Feminism hardly comes into play until you have kids. Then you get it." Why are these women insinuating that having children is what really makes you a feminist? Why are they excluding women who don't have children? This is everything that's wrong with feminism, people.

I don't think that particular quote was the best way to illustrate what some of the women interviewed by the Guardian about the survey are trying to say. Of course gender inequality impacts you before you have children or if you don't ever have children. Who's going to deny that? But pregnancy and motherhood undoubtedly highlight new issues, and bring to the fore problems that may well have not been a feature of some women's lives before. No-one's saying that women, you haven't experienced inequality until you've had children. What they mean is that motherhood makes you much more aware of particular issues and aspects of inequality. And for many women, this will undoubtedly have the effect of "galvanising" their beliefs about feminism.

I've been meaning to blog about the way that "mothers", as a group, and their concerns are often dismissed and belittled by both the left and right for being "too middle class" and "trivial" for some time now, because I can't help but notice it any time someone mentions a campaign that affects children - backlash against the ubiquitous pink/blue distinctions between toys and the types of toys that are marketed as being "for boys" and "for girls"; backlash against lads mags and Page 3 being easily seen by children in shops; backlash against anything that's seen as presenting children with harmful messages about sex.

The middle class mother is a prime target for sneering, whether she's not working outside the home and therefore, apparently, living a pampered life funded by her husband, or else harming her children in myriad ways by "leaving them" to heartlessly pursue a career. It's a different sort of sneering to that aimed at working class mothers, but the comments aimed at both groups imply stupidity and the idea that their worries and concerns aren't "real" ones. Why would a woman, in this day and age, choose to define herself at any point by the fruits of her womb? Aren't we past all that? As I think I mentioned in a post I wrote while on maternity leave, sorry that some of us want to talk about things that are an enormous part of our lives.

Some feminists assume that the voices of women who aren't white and middle class are ignored by these parent-focused campaigns and issues. This is a legitimate concern for those of us who observe the way the media has publicised activism in recent years, but to assume is dangerous and all too often inaccurate. If you don't spend time on Mumsnet and feel contemptuous about its members, how much do you know about them, really? And how much do you know about their campaigns?

This Is My Child aims to "support parents of children with additional needs, inform everyone else, and open up a conversation about how we can all act to make life easier for everyone caring for children with additional needs." The campaign has been debunking myths about disability and raising awareness of how we can challenge assumptions about the issues involved.

We Believe You, aimed at busting the victim-blaming myths about rape and sexual assault, was launched amid an overwhelming response to members being encouraged to talk about their own experiences and why they did or did not report them to police or tell friends and family.

Better Miscarriage Care put pressure on the NHS to provide more sensitive and responsive treatment to women experiencing early pregnancy loss. As someone with friends who have had distressing experiences with healthcare professionals while miscarrying, I know this is vital.

Let Girls Be Girls, a campaign that launched in 2010, was a response to growing concern about the way advertising, music, clothing, and magazines encourage a view of sex and sexuality that encourages girls to focus on appearance above all else, tells them that they exist to please boys and men, and tells them that their most important quality is how "sexy" they are.

Bounty Mutiny is asking politicians and the NHS to rethink the fact that Bounty sales reps have a presence on postnatal wards, pressurising women into giving out personal details and invading their privacy at a time that's at best a time for family, bonding with a new baby, and recovering from labour, and at worst, a time of worry, trauma, and possibly grieving.

I wouldn't describe any of these campaigns as "trivial" and "silly". Would you say the same for some of Mumsnet's forums, where you can find long-running threads on recognising the "red flags" of an abusive relationship, posts offering help and resources to women in abusive situations, and personal support to individuals as they go to the police, walk out on a violent man, or rebuild their lives? How much do you really know about the boards where women discuss their experiences of assault and rape, support members who are survivors, offer advice on workplace discrimination, and help each other thrash out some of their first, conflicted thoughts about body politics and equality in relationships? Do you really know much at all about all the consciousness-raising discussion? The "shouting back" about everyday sexism? The support for women who've gone through miscarriages and stillbirths or are coping with having a terminally ill child?

If you don't, but your first reactions to discussion of a community of (mostly) mothers online are sneers and "God help feminisms", then it's probably time, in the tradition of the internet, for me to direct you to Google, with the instruction that you're perfectly capable of educating yourself about all this stuff. Mothers are a vital part of your movement and are providing important comment on so many important issues. If you don't know this because they're "not on your radar", ask yourself why.

Further reading - Glosswatch: Why Mumsnet feminism matters

Image: full version here

The breastapo, gobby women, and freaks of nature: breastfeeding as a feminist issue

It's National Breastfeeding Awareness Week and the debates it was supposed to ignite are in full swing. New research has shown that fewer women are initiating breastfeeding, and that in 2012-13, 327,048 mothers were not breastfeeding at all by the time their babies were six to eight weeks old. The Royal College of Midwives has voiced concerns over the lack of government support for what is undoubtedly a public health issue, highlighting the national shortage of midwives, cuts to breastfeeding support services, and England's lack of a national feeding strategy.

"Areas with high breastfeeding initiation and continuation rates tend to have strong Sure Start Centres, breastfeeding drop-in clinics, good peer support and community midwifery networks, where the midwife is the first point of contact for the mother and where there are good role models.

Research has shown that other factors, such as the availability and expert knowledge from midwives, especially community midwives and health visitors, who play integral roles in helping and guiding women about breastfeeding, are important," said Louise Silverton, writing for the Observer.

One particular area of concern is the regional variations in breastfeeding statistics that are indicative not only of varying levels of support offered, but also of links to affluence and class.

"In areas with high levels of social deprivation – such as Knowsley, Hartlepool and North East Lincolnshire – four in five mothers are not breastfeeding at all some six to eight weeks after their child's birth. By contrast, in Kensington, west London, 87% of mothers said they were partially or totally breastfeeding at the same stage," we were told in another story appearing in Sunday's Observer.

Here we go, you're probably thinking. She's talking about motherhood again. She who had no intention of becoming a Mummy Blogger. Next she's going to start talking about her personal experience of breastfeeding.

Here's the thing: breastfeeding is, absolutely, a feminist issue. It's guaranteed to bring out both the misogynists and talk of sisterhood. It's one of the issues that is guaranteed to get women talking. Four out of five women will at some point give birth and have to deal with conflicting information being thrown at them from all sides as well as prejudices and judgmental attitudes about every action they take during their pregnancy and while giving birth. They will see that you can't go out in public without seeing breasts in advertising, in newspapers and magazines as an important part of what being a woman is all about. And then they'll hear that women get asked to leave cafes because they've breastfed in public, that people deem it "unpleasant" and "gross", sneering asides that women who breastfeed around others are "just doing it to prove a point".

They will discover that breastfeeding is difficult, that it is a learned skill, and that most women really do need support to master it in the early days. They will discover that those early days and weeks involve near-constant attachment to a newborn, that it is time-consuming and can be physically draining. They'll hear about mastitis and blocked ducts and cracked nipples. That exclusively breastfeeding involves getting used to expressing when you need to spend time away from your baby and that this is also a learned skill that can be frustrating and stressful.

They will hear about the health benefits for themselves and their baby, about how rewarding it can be, about how amazing breastmilk is, about how it has ensured the continuation of civilisation through the centuries. It's likely that they'll want to breastfeed, but when the overriding message is how hard it is and little support is on offer, things might not go to plan. And if things do go to plan (as they did for me, thanks to good information and support), they'll still get people presenting formula as the solution to many a problem (Sleepless nights? That baby needs a bottle. Baby feeding a lot? Your milk might not be enough - try formula!) and expressing horror once they find out they're "still" breastfeeding their older baby (especially once said older baby gets teeth).

Depending on where you look, the big problem when it comes to attitudes about breastfeeding is the "breastapo", the militant lactivists who bully mothers into feeling guilty for giving up breastfeeding (or not starting it in the first place), or else the "gobby" anti-breastfeeding brigade who supposedly prize freedom, consumerism, and personal choice over breastmilk. I truly believe that the breastfeeding debate is the most toxic of all the "Mummy Wars", ticking all the boxes of playing on women's insecurities about their bodies' natural processes, their appearance, social class, their baby's intelligence, and the fear that somewhere, someone might be judging their parenting abilities and devotion to their children.

In reality, as is usually the case, members of these two camps are less common than the papers would have you believe. It's true that I deleted myself from a "breastfeeding support" community on Facebook because of the unpleasant direction the discussions started to take. Women don't need to be told in a patronising manner that breastfeeding probably would have worked out for them if they'd "just been more informed about the facts". They don't need to be told that formula is "poison". The final straw was the responses to a woman who wanted tips on expressing because she was going to be spending a day away from her four-month-old for the first time. "Why do you feel the need to give the baby a bottle?" - "Four months is much too young for a bottle! It will cause nipple confusion!" - "Don't do it!".

It's also true that on any given day you can search Twitter and find scores of people getting extremely disgusted by the fact they've spotted a woman breastfeeding in their vicinity. "No offence but does she need to do that in full view of everyone?" - "AWKWARD" - "No-one wants to see you feeding your baby!" Images of women breastfeeding are constantly deleted from Facebook and Instagram as they're deemed to be violating policy, while pages dedicated to grim misogyny abound. It was suggested in the Daily Telegraph this week that we "need" the Duchess of Cambridge to breastfeed and go public about it so she can be a role model for other young mothers. In the event of such a thing happening you can guarantee the buzz online would be more about the state of the royal tits - and Kate's desirability as a result - than anything else.

In light of all this, you can understand why it all gets too much. Lack of a national feeding strategy and recognition of breastfeeding as a health issue, with adequate support for new mothers and local networks providing advice and friendship will only mean that the misinformation, the judgmental attitudes, and the manufactured "cat fights" discourage more and more women from achieving their breastfeeding goals. It will continue to pit them against each other and encourage suspicion and shame. And who needs that when they've just gone through the rigours of pregnancy and birth?

Review: A Year of Biblical Womanhood

Biblical womanhood. It's a phrase and a concept that doesn't sit well with many Christians, thanks to the way it's been held over women and used to dictate their life choices in recent decades. For a long time, those two words together made me bristle with irritation at the way they're used, at the things they're supposed to suggest. In the UK, Biblical womanhood isn't such a clearly defined set of choices, personality traits and opinions as it is in the US, where depending on what sort of church you go to it might mean long skirt-wearing, head-covering, contraception-eschewing, living under the 'authority' of a man at all times, or Martha Stewart-cooking, seasonal craft-making, "keeping sweet" and claiming that when it comes to clothes, "modest is hottest". Cultural and religious differences mean it'll probably never be like this here, unless we see some sort of Handmaid's Tale-inspired coup d'etat. But that doesn't mean we don't see the popular books about it stocked in our churches and some of the more popular ideas about it bandied about during women's events and Bible studies.

The long-awaited book about this nebulous concept from the often-controversial blogger Rachel Held Evans has been creating a bit of a storm since its publication. Evans knew this would happen because it started the moment she published a blog post announcing her Biblical Womanhood project. Over the past couple of years, she's gone from being a well-known blogger and writer to being notorious, with scores of fans, but also with critics lining up to label her evil, a heretic, bitter and ungracious, hysterical, out of line and someone who's making a mockery of scripture. Plenty have gone as far as to question whether she can actually be regarded as a Christian at all. The main reason for this, of course, is the fact that she writes with passion about women's issues from an egalitarian perspective, and dares to question conservative evangelical culture. And in a country where this has the ability to incite such angry debate, where the role of women within Christianity is such an issue that it's causing incredible damage in people's lives, that it's causing women to leave the church altogether - Evans's voice was never going to be welcomed by all.

The basic premise of the book is a playful sort of piece of performance art - explored through a series of experiments and conversations. Evans chooses 12 qualities of women mentioned in the Bible (gentleness, domesticity, obedience, valour, beauty, modesty, purity, fertility, submission, justice, silence, and grace) and devotes one month to exploring each of them, setting herself goals and activities, and meeting women who espouse some of these qualities. Yes, she spends time sleeping in a tent because she's menstruating. Yes, she stops cutting her hair and wearing trousers. It's meant to be slightly hyperbolic because plenty of these things really are mentioned in the Bible, and because she wants us to find it funny. And it is - reading of her exploits with a computerised baby, her efforts to cook elaborate recipes, and she and husband Dan's attempts to get used to a marriage with defined "roles" and male headship is good fun.

But there's plenty to be serious about too. In her own words, Evans's goal was to challenge the idea that "Biblical womanhood" is a set of roles and rules. She set out to explore the stories of women in the Bible, look at the way different groups of Christians interpret "Biblical womanhood" today, and come to some of her own conclusions about what it meant for her personally, and for Christian women in general. She developed a close and wonderful friendship with an Orthodox Jewish woman. She talked to Amish women, spent time at a monastery, got the lowdown from a woman who grew up in the Christian Patriarchy movement, and visited a whole bunch of amazing women in Bolivia. It was from these conversations, with people who didn't share her religious traditions and culture, that Evans gained a lot of wisdom and insight, confronting plenty of negative stereotypes she'd previously held.

She was also able to confront several of her insecurities - mainly discomfort with the "Proverbs 31 wife" and the way she had felt - even from childhood, that she never would measure up to what this was supposed to represent, but also her anxieties about motherhood. The exploration into Proverbs 31 is one of the most profound in the book, as when Evans decides to "take back Proverbs 31", and delves into the concept of the woman of valour - eshet chayil - she realises that the woman is not praised for what she does, rather for how she does it. As a result she resolves to celebrate the lives and work of women who shine, and stop trying to be anyone but herself.

In exploring the qualities of the Biblical woman, Evans also has warnings for Christians and Christian culture -  of teaching a view of beauty that amounts to "thou shalt not let thyself go", and for pastors tempted to teach prescriptively about "Biblical" sex in a way that goes into great detail. She comes to the conclusion that "the Bible does not present us with a single model for womanhood, and the notion that it contains a sort of one-size-fits-all formula...is a myth". This is well illustrated by the fact that each chapter ends with a section focusing on a different woman whose story is told in the Bible. No uniformity is to be found in the tales of Esther and Deborah, Leah and Martha, Junia and the woman at the well.

To a UK reader, A Year of Biblical Womanhood is also an interesting glimpse into a culture far more bound by conservative Christian values - Evans writes of worship music playing in the background at the craft store, and having to drive for forty five minutes to buy wine to cook with, as "hard liquor" can't be purchased in her county. When she meets a female pastor, she learns of how the woman was called "a cancer in the church" and "a threat to Christianity" for preaching, with people leaving her church in protest and other local churches coming together to denounce her. It shows us that we are, perhaps, quite fortunate that there is less of one-size-fits-all approach here, but also that maybe there are perspectives we are missing in our discourse on the subject, and that we often don't consider what the situation is for women in other branches of the church.

So what of the criticism the book has received so far? A good number of Evans's more vocal opponents haven't actually read it, convinced as they are that it's full of heresy and mockery (she has politely suggested that they may wish to do so before commenting further). Many of them don't like the tone of her writing - but as Morgan Guyton said in a piece for HuffPost Religion (read it; it's good):

"The trouble is you can't be taken seriously in the world our generation inhabits if you get your undies in a bunch over sass and sarcasm."

Snark should not be the problem here. There's nothing wrong with putting a humorous spin on things. Evans predicted in the book itself that she would receive criticism from two camps - from conservatives calling her "dangerous" and an "extreme feminist", and from atheists, calling her "brainwashed" and wondering why she belongs to a patriarchal religion in the first place. From what I've seen this is fairly accurate. I've been disappointed by the unwillingness of people holding such views to actually engage with the purpose of the project - for the former, reviews have seemed to mainly consist of theological rebuttals of egalitarianism as if that's what's at stake here, and accusations that Evans has somehow "put God's word on trial". As Amy Lepine Peterson wrote in her review of the book:

"If Evans is putting anything on trial, it’s the notion that any human, herself included, can have the final word on what defines 'womanhood'."

As a Christian with great respect for the Bible, Evans had no intention of trashing the phrase "Biblical womanhood" or denigrating God. She talks about the way we all interpret scripture to find what we are looking for and challenges us in this respect. She finds a new reverence for contemplative practices and ritual. She's able to take a lot from the experiment. And she wants us to take something from our reading of it, too. Apparently this has already been happening - she's had correspondence from people who have told her it's made them want to start delving into their Bibles again, that it has finally brought them to a place of peace with the Proverbs 31 woman.

Eshet chayil, Rachel!

Further reading: "Biblical womanhood" and the illusion of clarity

Baby brain

As I sort of expected, my commitment to blogging has fallen by the wayside somewhat since giving birth in May. The newborn stage of having a baby is just a blur now - you have this creature that alternates between eating and crying (some people's babies also do naps but I seem to have produced one that isn't keen) and you muddle your way through it. Eventually you emerge from this stage having gained little chunks of your day back because said creature is managing not to eat non-stop and is learning to play.

Despite this, you still don't get a whole lot done. And this is hard. You go into this motherhood lark knowing that it's going to bring huge changes to your life. You're used to a busy job and an enormous to-do list, going to the gym, writing in the evenings and on your lunch break, attending events and conferences and staying on the ball, getting stuck in at church, keeping up to date with the news and blogs and always thinking, planning, getting stuff done. And all of a sudden, you consider it a huge achievement that you did the washing up and made the bed and only had to walk round the park for an hour before the baby would fall asleep. You think you might write about something but before you know it the day's flown by and the moment has passed.

I'm not going to lie - it can be really disheartening. Despite your love for that child and the amazing experience of watching them change and grow every day and the support from your partner and your family - it's difficult. Despite the new friends you make and the old ones you still see, it can be really isolating. On bad days, you wonder if something's happened to your identity, whether it went somewhere and whether you'll get it back - or maybe, it's just changed.

You read ridiculous articles like this one by Katie Roiphe and think "Crap, this is what some people think of me". God forbid that I should talk about or post pictures of this little person I spent 40 weeks creating and several hours birthing and now devote my days to caring for because he depends on me entirely. Hide me from your Facebook feed and unfollow me on Twitter and assume that I feel I don't matter any more and that my identity is my child, if that's what you want to think.

Last month we made our annual trip to Momentum. My favourite of the messages preached there that week was from Danielle Strickland, who flew halfway across the world with her four month old son in tow to tell us, among other things, that your circumstances don't have to be a barrier. She recalled women telling her:

"How can I do that? I'm a mother."

As if it was a problem that was going to stop them doing what they were passionate about. Danielle didn't think much of that.

"This is tough," I told God afterwards. "This is really hard."

It was confirmed to me then what I really did know all along.

"Don't worry. What you are doing now is really important."

Which doesn't mean that I'm not looking forward to really getting stuck into stuff again.

Image

Motherhood. Womanhood. Whatever.

I can't remember whether or not I've ever mentioned the fact that I found being married quite hard to adjust to, being a person used to spending a lot of time alone, and having had a relationship, pre-marriage, that had been primarily long-distance. Someone else was making demands on my time. Living together felt a bit stifling. I wondered whether I would lose my identity, whether I had stopped being "Hannah" and had instead become "Luke's wife". This scared me. After a while, I adjusted. Things were fine. It took a while, and a lot of talking things through, but one of the first things you need to learn about marriages is that they take work, and it's good to realise this at the beginning.

Adjusting to motherhood involves many of the same issues. I'm now at home until next year, but someone else is making demands on my time. This time, however, I can't throw my hands up and say that I need my own space, because that someone is a newborn. Of course Luke spends his fair share of time parenting too, but for the time being, I'm the one with the food. And so at present, I spend the majority of my days on the sofa, or on my bed, baby attached to me, checking Twitter on my phone as he eats.

I've used plenty of this time to look back on my experience of pregnancy and birth. I feel incredibly fortunate  that everything was so straightforward and without complication. I certainly wasn't expecting to dilate from six to ten centimetres in an hour. I definitely didn't think I'd pop a baby out after just 18 minutes of pushing. Everyone tells you your birth plan will "go out of the window" once you get to hospital and things get moving. I stuck to mine: I was standing up until the very end; I used gas and air, no drugs; I had a physiological third stage. These were my choices; I decided they were right for me and for my situation, and because everything progressed without complications, I was able to go with what I had planned. What other women choose to do, or have to do out of medical necessity, has nothing to do with me. I know everyone doesn't treat the experience of birth like that - hence the so-called "wars" that take place on blogs and forums, where a simple retelling of a birth story is often seen as a judgement on women whose experiences didn't go to plan or who chose to do things differently. It could have all been very different for me, so there's no judgement here.

I was surprised at how everything turned out. It made me feel very powerful. Powerful because of what my body has done in terms of creating a child; powerful because of how I had managed my labour; powerful because of how my body worked to bring Sebastian into the world. I felt somewhat less powerful in the following days as I experienced all the expected anxieties that come with being a new mother: hormones, sleep, feeling as if broken glass was coming out of my nipples when I fed. There are other things I've done that have influenced a positive attitude towards my body image, not as something to feel smug about because I have a magazine-approved "bikini body" (I don't - especially right now), but as something awesome - climbing a mountain, running half marathons. Now "creating and birthing a child" can be added to that list and also to my list of "defining experiences of my journey as a woman". It definitely deserves a place there. That's my journey, not "the journey of women in general".

See how blogging about motherhood is already making me feel as if I have to attach qualifiers to everything, in case people think I'm being judgmental about the choices and experiences of other women? It's not something I normally do - it's ridiculous, and it's a sad reflection on how all this works. Apologising for your opinions the minute you talk about them (isn't that what we women are supposed to do?). Mommy wars. Mummy wars. Whatever. So I think that's the last time I'll do it: no more qualifying statements for me. I trust people to understand, by looking at the way the rest of this blog works, that this isn't what I'm about. If it's anything like my pregnancy, I'll blog about about motherhood once every few months. So there's some advance warning.

Full term

Well, we made it. Today marks the magic 37 week point of my pregnancy. Full term; ready to roll; lock and load. The point at which you know that within five weeks, there will be a baby. Obviously, sooner than in five weeks' time would be nice, because I'm not particularly patient. Said baby is still all up in my ribcage and I'm thoroughly looking forward to the day when I can bend in the middle again and easily turn over in bed. Things I'm also looking forward to include walking at my usual pace, wearing non-maternity clothes, alcohol, eventually getting back into running, not being stared at in public as if I have two heads, and actually meeting the child my body has been working so hard to produce since last August.

I don't feel as if this baby-making thing has secured my womanhood and led me any closer to having a concrete answer to the question "What does being a woman mean?". It has made me certain that I hate "Mommy/Mummy Wars" discussions. It has made me certain that I get irritated by unsolicited "advice" about being a mother, particularly the sort of "advice" that intimates come next month, I will cease to have a life. That's about it so far.

But as is the case with a lot of people I know or whose blogs I read, gender expectations and stereotyping as they relate to babies and children have already become apparent, and given me plenty to think about when I wonder what it's going to be like to bring up a son or a daughter. It starts when, like me, you don't know the sex of the baby you're having, and some people treat you as if you're being difficult, stuck in this ridiculous sexless limbo that means you must be at a loss how to decorate the baby's room, or buy clothes for it. Admittedly, this does depend on the shops you frequent and the attitude you have towards colours, but I've already been informed that red, green and yellow are "boy colours" and that "you can't put a boy in a cardigan with ducks on it" (watch me).

This, of course, is the age of PinkStinks and Pigtail Pals and Hamleys doing away with its "pink for girls" and "blue for boys" signs. All that sort of stuff gets flak from certain news outlets and commentators for the supposed "anti-pink" stance ("girls are WIRED to like pink and that's a fact, people" - or otherwise - "urgh, first world feminist problems"), but we all know it goes further than that. It's not about being "against" the colour pink (I'm certainly not, despite the fact it's far from my favourite colour), but the way it has taken hold as the only option available, while displays of toy domestic appliances leave us in no doubt at which gender they're meant for.

Last month when I asked people about their perceptions of womanhood and femininity, Sarah Ditum told me she'd been pitched into the "war on pink" when she became the mother of a daughter, before it made her wonder just how consistent that made her as a role model - which I think is a really good point.

"That was interesting for a start – to realise that I'd designated 'boy things' as neutral and 'girl things' as optional extras, even though a lot of my identity and personal happiness is vested in [enjoying fashion, makeup, and other 'feminine' things]," she said, adding that she has no problem helping her daughter understand that these are things that make her comfortable with her identity as a woman, even though she doesn't necessarily see them as synonymous with "femininity", or necessary.

"It's impossible to be truly neutral," she said. "Instead, I hope that I can at least introduce them to the way gender is made at the same time that they are learning its codes."

I think part of doing this in a positive way is obviously about how gender is modelled within the family, and this is partly why I've been recently featuring guest posts from blogging friends who practice egalitarian relationships and shared parenting. It was interesting to read this piece by Jill Filipovic for Comment is Free last week, entitled "How gender equality is the friend of the family". Filipovic highlighted some recent research from the US that shows women now, more than ever, consider job success and satisfaction extremely important. Yet the research also found that there's also been a significant increase (since 1997) in the percentage of both men and women who see being a good parent as a top priority.

"Both men and women spend more time, and more quality time, with their kids than ever before – even more time than at the height of the stay-at-home mother," she writes.

"Dads who also balance work and family mean working moms aren't under quite as much pressure to be full-time employees and over-time parents, and so young women now can reasonably expect to have a fulfilling career and also be great moms. And dads, relieved of the burden to be the sole financial provider for their entire families, can recognize that their contributions to their kids can go far beyond the monetary, and include the tough but fulfilling emotional work of parenting, as well."

Filipovic adds that naturally, there is still a long way to go, in terms of equal pay, in terms of differences according to class privilege, in terms of the division of labour in the home. This much is true and must not be forgotten, but it was good to see a piece that didn't fall for all the usual "Having It All" or "Mommy Wars" clichés, or highlight some research claiming to show that women are more unhappy with their lives than ever - thanks, of course, to modern society making them feel they have to subvert traditional gender roles.

I'm left wondering how my own perceptions and opinions might change in the next few months. For now, I await the arrival of the baby.

Some recommended reading: blogs that deal with motherhood and parenting issues. I've been reading a fairly limited list, but these are the ones I go back to.

- PhD in Parenting

- Balancing Jane

- Adventures in Boogieville

- The Feminist Breeder

- Emerging Mummy

- C. Jane Kendrick

- The Achilles Effect

- Blue Milk

- More Than Toast

- Itsmotherswork

- Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Womanhood: what does it mean?

What does being a woman mean? What makes a woman a woman? C. Jane asked me this a few weeks back after she'd watched Miss Representation and was mulling over a lot of thoughts about how what she'd seen. The makers of this documentary want it to be a call to action to women and girls, encouraging them to challenge the limiting way they're portrayed by the media and in public life, so they can realise their full potential and women who have a great deal to offer society, rather than women whose worth is dependent on their looks and sexuality, or fulfilling certain stereotypes.

I think most of us can identify with this. We talk about it - the expectations society has of us, the way it pits us against each other and the way it denigrates women who don't measure up. Someone replied to Courtney to say that for them, becoming a mother was the ultimate expression of womanhood. Not everyone agreed - where does that leave women who can't have children, or don't want to, or would like to but don't have any yet? This is the problem with trying to define it with particular life experiences and characteristics - inevitably, someone will feel left out or hurt.

I'm someone who struggles to articulate what "being a woman" and "femininity" mean to me. I'm not even sure if I know. And I wondered if other women feel the same - so I asked them. Here follow the thoughts of some of the women who follow me on Twitter.

One thing that was immediately obvious was the negative feeling associated with the idea of "femininity".

"Womanhood is a state of being a woman. Femininity is a 1950s advertising stereotype that some try to impose on women. I've been accused of being unfeminine by another woman because I liked beer and football and I was outspoken. I don't want her version of femininity, it's bobbins." 

"I feel like womanhood embraces all it means to be a woman, whatever that looks like. Almost a rallying call rather than a label. For me femininity has a lot more baggage. It's a standard used to judge women by. Too feminine, not feminine enough..."

"I feel like 'femininity' is so often a by-line for stifling stereotypes."

"Womanhood is the cultural destiny ascribed to biology. Femininity is when I play along with it. Feminism is when I spit in its eye."

"Femininity is a state that I feel other women achieve and I've never quite managed. It's only a concept to me, not reality. I've always been quite 'unfeminine' (short hair, tomboy etc) and didn't want to be stereotyped by it, but felt like I was failing by not being able to do those feminine things even though I didn't want them. Very confusing."

"Womanhood means the biology bits. Femininity, the way I signal it through clothing, appearance and manners. Being a woman feels unavoidable. Being feminine is something I work at."

"I've always felt excluded by the terms feminine/femininity because it is something I have never felt/wanted to be."

I very much identify with these statements. As a teenager and a woman on the cusp of adulthood, femininity was something I didn't have much of. I wasn't bothered about grooming and adornment. I didn't have "curves". Boys made fun of the way I looked and girls sneered at my clothes (teen bullying, eh?). The accepted line of thinking was that I looked "like a man". I remember sitting in my room in my first year at university, overhearing someone who lived on my corridor discussing this fact just outside the door. People giggled in response. Femininity was something I didn't have, and that made me a failure.

Eventually that phase of my life was over, but I had something new to worry about: "Biblical femininity" (whatever the hell that was supposed to be). I gathered from various sources that I wasn't joyful and outgoing enough. I was too outspoken and opinionated. I had no interest in other people's children and certainly didn't have the "gift of hospitality" - I liked to be left alone. That made me a failure. That phase of my life is over as well, but it just goes to show how much that word, and that concept are used to put us into little boxes, and beat us about the head when we don't fit into them.

In the same was that "femininity" is seen as something limiting, "womanhood" seems, for some, to be something unattainable and far-off, something for "grown-ups" that's dependent on having the job, the car, the house and the partner. How much of that is down to women's magazines and the like, or what society - and our families - expect we should be doing by the time we've reached a certain age?

"Womanhood is something I associate with grand dames, matrons and majestic older ladies. Manhood seems just a sexual euphemism to me. Womanhood is a combination of experience, power and knowledge."

"There seems to be a transition period for all faab people between 'girl' & 'woman' - an interim period, where there's a too-grown-up for girl, not 'grown-up' enough for woman (maybe not ALL female people, but many). Seems like there is an unattainable aspect i.e. a woman can raise a child, have a job, love a partner and DIY a doily..."

"It feels sometimes that I have spent my life trying to be a woman that I think I am meant to be, rather than the person I really am who just happens to be a woman."

There was also a definite third category of responses - and these are the statements I most identify with at this point in my life. To me, being a woman doesn't make me feel special. It doesn't make me feel more spiritual or more blessed. It just happened. I don't feel I have to act a certain way to be a woman. I want to embrace who I am and celebrate womanhood, but I don't think womanhood has to look like anything in particular, and I think that when we attempt to make it so, things start to go wrong.

"I am passionate about teaching and enabling young women, but other than that, being female is almost incidental."

"Womanhood is something I am, femininity is something I wear. Femininity is not inherent to me, not an essential identity."

"I find defining myself problematic as humans are contradictions & far too complicated to label. However in terms of my passion to see women realise and released to fullfill their potential, I am passionate about women. I celebrate my being a woman in that I have managed to do grow and achieve and find value and security, but ironically that security has led me not really be bothered about my womanhood."

That third statement sums it up perfectly for me. Finding value and security in my identity meant I stopped bothering about womanhood and "femininity" as a concept and realised that it doesn't mean a set of achievements, rules and behaviours, clothes or hair or what men think of me. For me this seems like the right conclusion to arrive at. When womanhood does signify those sort of things, it will always leave someone feeling inadequate.

When I look at the women of the Bible, they fulfilled many different roles and displayed many different characteristics. That's why it leaves me baffled when my religion tells me that being a woman is about ticking certain boxes. It's why I feel baffled when people get so very distressed at the idea of men and women being "equal" because they think that means "the same" - because that would never do. It shocks and appalls. Because when you take away the "differences" that aren't really "differences", the "differences" that are more assumptions and stereotypes, what are you left with? The way I see it, the answer is "not as much as most people think". Although we are told in scripture that there is a distinction, it reveals little about any personality traits we must supposedly have as a result. I'll always remember reading an extract from a book, which claimed that Genesis 1 gives us a portrait of  "a woman's inherent softness". Just in case I'd been missing anything, I double checked. The creation narrative seemed to be oddly lacking in any mention of, or allusion to, "softness". This is what happens when ascribing stereotypes goes a touch too far.

So how can we focus on a positive concept of womanhood? How do we make sure that all women feel included in this - that there are no accusations flying around of either trying to box us in, or hating on "traditional" femininity - which is of course embraced by many? And what implications does it have for the way we raise future generations?

I plan that this will be the first of a number of posts exploring this subject.